OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

New patients coming into Mayo Clinic talk to schedulers who run a decision tree to

determine which is the best specialty and provider that can treat the patients condition or

concern. These decision trees are built with an algrothm behind the scences to guide the

scheduler with questions to ask the patients. The algrothm is determined by a combination of

best practice workflows, rules and questions. While working with Sleep Medicine in Rochester,

Minnesota to create their decision trees, we were up against a time crunch due to the project

deadlines. The chair of the department was innovative beyond our build capabilities at the time

which made it difficult to finalize workflows. I was also a new analyst when it came to the type

of system build for the project and my confidence level in my capabilities were low. I had to

work overtime to completed the build including after hours meetings to come to an agreement.

The final outcome had to be demoed to all the stakeholders within the department. This took

place in a large presentation hall pushing my public speaking skills to grow exponetually. This

situation also pushed me to think outside the box and collobrate with other build team members.

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 2) Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.

The soul of Mayo Clinic lies with the mission value of “the needs of the patient is the only

needs to be considered” (Mayo Clinic, 2023). This statement is seen on all of the campus

somewhere in the buildings as a reminder to all staff, stakeholders and customers. Another

values statement of Mayo Clinic “Value the contributions of all, blending the skills of individual

staff members in unsurpassed collaboration” describes my situation well (Mayo Clinic, 2023).

The collaboration between the department and myself had to be on the same page to reach our

end goal. It took some time but going back to the core values we were able to complete the

project.

In my situation the clinical provider used his power to push what he wanted the outcome to

be even though it was out of scope for the project. “People want power to control their

immediate work environment” because people think know what is best (Bolman, Deal 2021).

The clinical provider thought he knew what the best outcome would be for the patients keeping

to the values which made him believe his behavior was ethical. A comprise was reached to after

further collaboration with other system builders and the needs of the patients were met.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

One ethical communities that could result in an alternative course of action in my case is

authorship. “Aurthorship turns the classic organizational pyramid on its side and provides space

within boundaries” (Bolman, Deal 2021). The managers of the project could have given the

builders, such as myself, more creativity to expand on ideas the practices proposed. We were told

to stick to the scope of the project in order to meet the deadlines. If the practice complained

about the scope to leadership we would then be told to come to an agreement pushing the scope.

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This was frustrating since it made the builders look like we did not want to work with the

practice.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about ethics.

Many areas of project management was new to me at the time of my situation. The only part

I would have done differently is not pushing the solid line of in scope verses out of scope

gaurdrails of the project. Looking back at the values that make up the soul of Mayo Clinic, the

clinical provider was asking to do what was best for the patient. I could have solved more of the

issues on my own by collorbating with my managers more on the ask of the department.

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 References

1. Mayo Clinic (n.d.). Mayo Clinic Mission and Values. About Mayo Clinic. Retrieved

September 28, 2023, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic/mission-values

2. Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass